The following was a letter penned to Rabbi Chaim David Zwiebel, the Executive Vice President of Agudath Yisroel of America in 2016. The point was made that ignoring religious rights regarding vaccination would weaken religious liberties in the USA and particularly in New York State. The message of the letter remained unheeded; the lessons have not been learned. Unfortunately, we have seen the fallout yesterday in the passing of arguably the worst legislation ever passed. The passing of the Education Law is unprecedented in affecting religious autonomy in the United States. However, it wasn’t something that couldn’t be foreseen… for those who cared to look.
Five years ago (2011), metzitza b'peh (MBP) came under attack in New York. The CDC (Centers for Disease Contol) made serious allegations that eleven babies were infected with Herpes following metzitza b'peh. The head of the NY Department of Health (NYS DoH), Dr. Thomas Frieden went out of his way to spin data and skew statistics to portray what was termed “the dark side of an archaic religious ritual” as a public health crisis. The NY DoH enlisted the help of the CDC to procure fake statistics to demonize MBP. However, CDC investigators never actually conjured up any concrete proof that the source of the Herpes came from the mohellim. It was to the credit of Agudath Israel of America’s valiant fight for our rights that we ultimately won the case.
After an unsuccessful attempt to abolish MBP, the Dr. Thomas Frieden went on to become the head of the CDC, the government body assigned to preside over all matters pertinent to vaccination. It would only be a matter of time until Frieden utilizes his newfound position of power to further abuse our religious rights in the name of public health.
In a meeting held by the Agudah’s Moetzes to discuss school policies about vaccines, two paid pharmaceutical representative doctors made an appearance to push their vaccine agendas. Consequently, in January 2015, Agudath Israel facilitated a meeting at Prospect Park Bnos Leah High School between the NYC health Department and Jewish Brooklyn schools. Representatives from every school convened and were warned quite direly that failure to comply with vaccine requirements will result in a $2,000 fine per violation. Also discussed was the importance of tracking children who are not up to date on their vaccination. Under the threat of fines, all schools jumped onboard, some exhibiting an extra zealousness. Rejecting religious exemptions, even when mandated by law to accept them, resulted in the crowning of Dr. Jeffrey Teitelbaum of Ezra Medical center (affiliate of Yeled VeYalda) as “Immunization Champion” by the CDC.
This burden of increased reporting led schools to a funding deficit of $7 million dollars. In January of 2016 a “wish list” was compiled by Agudath Israel and sent to Albany. Included was a request that the state cover the cost of vaccine record keeping in schools.
Shortly thereafter, state bills were introduced to increase funding. The Agudah subsequently appealed to Albany legislators to consider supporting these bills since it was due to their influence that NY Yeshivos enacted zero tolerance policies, barring unvaccinated or even partially vaccinated students from attending. So far, this bill passed the NYS Senate on June 7, 2016 in a unanimous vote of 61 to 0 and bill A10309 is still waiting to pass the Assembly.
After Pesach in 2016, things went from bad to worse. On May 11, 2016, NYC arbitrarily declared “The Orthodox Jewish Community of Williamsburg” to be the source of a varicella (Chickenpox) outbreak. Non-Jewish pupils in schools that were far closer to the epicenter of the outbreak were deemed free and clear. Exclusively Jewish schools, many with a zero incidence of varicella, were considered chickenpox hotspots.
In response to the alleged varicella outbreak in Williamsburg, a letter originating from the Health Department was sent out by the Agudath Israel to expel all unvaccinated children. According to the CDC, the definition of a chickenpox outbreak requires the occurrence of 5 varicella cases within the same vicinity (i.e. same school). Nonetheless in many cases, hundreds of children were summarily expelled without a single case of varicella reported in the school. Although the Halacha dictates that children are never removed from their learning, even for building the Bais Hamikdash, it appears that secular law is now given primacy.
To be sure, this entire outbreak was merely a ruse for the events that follow. Chickenpox in endemic in the population at large, but one vocal pro-vaccine doctor realized that he had a slightly increased level of chickenpox in his practice.
Legally, unvaccinated children are only required to stay home twenty-one days after the last infection.
Most schools had no trace of infection at all, yet were still deemed an outbreak location; these children were sent home indefinitely. The misleading wording of the letter led school administrators to mistakenly believe that by keeping unvaccinated children in school, even with the proper exemption will incur a $2,000 fine per student.
Then, on May 18, 2016, the DoH held a secret meeting exclusively with Jewish school principals at 18 Middleton Street. The singular objective was to strategize enforcing higher vaccine compliance rates in the frum communities. During this meeting doctors and the Health Department demanded from schools to (illegally) refuse all religious exemptions. At the Health Department's behest, every single school agreed not to accept religious exemption, even though they are legally required to. (A recording of this meeting can be heard at vaccine lecture 126 on the Akeres Habayis hotline). The same Rabbi Niederman of PEARLS, who is currently fighting the Department of Education tooth and nail to prevent the government from posing mandated secular studies that are anathema to our faith, willingly handed over our religious rights to the Health Department. As recent as March of 2017, Agudath Israel requested the NYS Health Department to hold webinars for schools regarding immunization requirements. It is no surprise that issues regarding MBP have reared its head once again. After all, weren’t we the ones who gave the DoH the go-ahead, a mere few months earlier, that religious rights are up for sale?
As if things weren’t bad enough, on July 27, 2016 the NYC health department updated a law (Article 47) to require every child care teacher to vaccinated with every vaccine. They have been viciously enforcing this law and have already fined schools that were non-compliant. The Department of Health put no clause in about religious exemptions and therefore claims they can’t be accepted. To be sure, such an assertion is illegal. The reason why New York State permits religious exemption for children’s vaccines is not out of the goodness of their hearts. Rather it’s the first amendment of the constitution that protects religious rights. This does not have to be written in the law rather in constitutionally protected. The overstepping of authority of the NYC DoH has already come in the crosshairs when it’s flu vaccine mandate was struck down1.
Finally, in a shocking misuse of power, in February of 2018 the DoH demanded the full health records of all teachers, including their vaccination records even though such a disclosure is gross a breach of privacy. Make no mistake. It is not in the interest of the Health Department to know the height and weight of every faculty member in every school. They are single mindedly concentrating on increased vaccine uptake.
Ultimately this travesty is being perpetuated by our very own. Schools in the New York city area have allegedly received millions of dollars given with the expressed intention to attain high percentages of vaccine compliance in their respective mosdos.
Currently new bills are being introduced in nearly every state to completely remove the philosophical and religious vaccine exemptions entirely. Regardless of which side of the aisle one stands regarding vaccination, delegating our religious rights to Government should trouble us all. When the Supreme Court ruling in the “peyote” case threatened to our religious liberties in this country, Agudath Israel, fearing the precedent it would set, fought tenaciously for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Yet, vaccinations somehow have become a holy grail which must be enforced at all costs.2 Instead of predominance given to those who shower us with the most money, we must always remember חסד לאומים חטאת. The Rabbanim have spoken. Ousting an unvaccinated child from school is against halacha. And acquiescing to the whimsical wishes of government bodies who seek to rob us of our religious rights is against common sense as well.
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentDisplayServlet?documentId=rMx/kCukunYFt7RaSrsEuA==&system=prod
See Contemporary Halachic Problems Vol. VII; Rabbi JD Bleich, page 453, footnote 14, where he justifies compulsory vaccination, and sets the above case of Employment division vs. Smith as legal precedent regarding the constitutionally of such legislation.